Letter to My Dying Brother

When a close family member or friend passes, we all have regrets — even those of us who are fortunate enough to have a chance to say "goodbye," who perhaps have shepherded the dying individual through hospice and done everything "by the book."

We are, after all, only human.

I regret many things about my beloved brother's final months but not the letter I painstakingly composed and then read, in person, to him a few weeks before he passed away.

Here's the process I followed in writing this letter — part goodbye, part gratitude — when I found a dearth of good advice on the internet.

To understand why I felt so strongly about this effort — why it was nearly a sacred undertaking — you should know a bit about my brother.

To say that Tim was a complicated person is the grossest of understatements. A good friend once called him a "magnificent mess" — that description was spot on.

Tim's chaotic life began early. In 1965, he and some friends were caught committing a minor act of vandalism. The judge gave Tim a choice of going to "juvie" — a residential facility for young offenders — or joining the Army. Tim, for reasons I'll never understand, chose to enlist. 

Tim was 17. The Vietnam War was raging. Let's just say that the punishment did not fit the crime.

Soon after, a second brother was drafted and Tim volunteered to go to Vietnam — his understanding was that the Army wouldn't send two brothers to a combat zone simultaneously. (Let that sacrificial act — on the part of a teenager — sink in.) After basic training, Tim was shipped off to war.

Tim, a sensitive soul to begin with, was never the same after Vietnam. More than thirty years later he was diagnosed with "off the charts" PTSD but in those intervening decades he struggled with drug addiction, homelessness, stints in jail (always drug related) and rehab.

Here's the deal: Despite Tim's lousy luck and diminished circumstances, whenever someone needed help — be it one of his sons' friends, a fallen-on-hard-times buddy or even complete strangers — Tim was there. He housed and fed people (some for years), bailed them out of jail, loaned them money that was never repaid. If anyone asked, Tim gave.

Tim was finally awarded a 100% service-connected (PTSD) disability when he was in his 50s. He lived for a few years clean and sober and at peace. Then a gas leak in his apartment resulted in a devastating fire. The entire apartment complex was destroyed, and Tim was the primary victim. He spent six weeks in a burn unit, enduring skin grafts and incomprehensible pain.

But I never heard him complain. The Stoics had nothing on this guy.

In 2021 he went into rehab yet again. He'd just gotten out and moved into a new apartment when he ended up in the ER for what he thought was food poisoning.

It wasn't food poisoning. It was pancreatic cancer. Tim had only months to live.

The whys are obvious, right? You want to say goodbye to the dying person. You want them to hear that you love them and that you'll miss them. These are universal themes when a loved one is dying.

But why write a letter? Why not just have a conversation?

There were a couple of personal reasons that I opted to compose a goodbye letter to my brother. My parents had passed away some years earlier, within weeks of each other. I had many regrets after they passed.

The main one was also universal: Had I told them how much I loved them, how much they'd meant to me? (This phenomenon even has a name: grief-related regret.)

I wasn't going to make that mistake with my brother. He was on hospice so I had a chance to say goodbye. I wanted to do it right, to document it. And, in case it isn't clear from what I've already written, my brother Tim was my hero. I wanted him to know that.

And there's this: The process of writing itself is, for many of us, cathartic and clarifying and healing. It is for me. It's what I needed in that moment.

Like everyone else on the planet, I Googled a bit first.

Much of the advice was about what to say to a dying person—which sort of fit my situation but not exactly. Other sites were focused on estranged relationships. A good portion of that online wisdom covered what a dying person might include in a goodbye letter to loved ones—like a mom or dad writing to their children. And there were many sites devoted to how to write letters to loved ones after they'd passed, as part of the grieving process.

From these disparate sources — and based on my own unique relationship with my brother — I decided on the following approach:

#1. Determining goals

I wanted to include this basic advice on what to say to someone who is dying: I love you. Thank you. Please forgive me. I forgive you. And, then, goodbye.

But I also wanted this message to be kind of a combination gratitude letter/eulogy, even a paean. I wanted Tim to hear how much he had meant to so many people and reinforce that he had led a meaningful life despite (or perhaps because of?) the many obstacles he faced.

And while this letter was important to me, I wanted it to bring some peace to my brother as well.

#2. Composing the letter

This may go without saying but if you're looking for advice online, you may fall prey to the "copy and paste" syndrome. Resist this.

Carve out some time and dive deep into your loved one's life — and how it's intersected with yours. Here are a few examples from my letter:

Thank you, Tim, for modeling generosity and kindness for me. I often tell people about the time you literally gave someone the shirt off your back — well, ALMOST literally; it was actually your coat. I must have been a teenager — you were in your 20s — and we were driving somewhere. You picked up a hitchhiker. It was snowing and he was wearing a T-shirt. You gave him a ride — AND your good winter coat.

Thank you for your courage, Tim. You have been knocked down so many times in life. And you always got back up. Without complaining. It's really amazing. YOU are really amazing…

Thank you for always thinking the best of me. What I mean is you have always thought I was a better person than I actually am. That has meant a lot to me. It's made me try harder to live up to those expectations.

At the end I came to the "goodbye" part. This is how that went:

I know that you don't really believe in an afterlife. I absolutely understand the logic in that. But I do believe. So this, for me, is not goodbye. It's "I'll see you later."

And we all — in the end — die. You may be reaching that stage before the rest of your siblings — but, seriously Tim, we're not far behind you.

#3. The meeting

I wasn't going to send or even hand this to my brother — I was going to read it to him. That was always my intent. So after I'd composed my letter I asked Tim if I could visit and have a talk with him— just the two of us.

Tears welled up and my voice cracked a few times as I slowly read through the pages. My brother sat quietly, his eyes downcast. It was probably the most emotionally intense experience I've ever had.  

Later that day, he texted me this: "That meant a lot to me today. I especially appreciated the part where you said that you all (his four siblings) are not far behind me, that I'm just going first. That eases my mind a bit … "

And, of course, "I love you."

#4. The aftermath

It's not like it was all unicorns and rainbows after this goodbye letter session. But it did lighten me up somewhat during Tim's final weeks. If I left his apartment and he slipped away while I was gone, I had the knowledge and comfort that things weren't left unsaid.

I kinda hate the word closure — sounds like a real estate transaction — but I guess that's what it provided.

I lost another brother last month. It was very sudden — no time for "goodbyes" or "I love yous."

I'd give most anything if I could sit down and watch a Humphrey Bogart movie with him one last time — and then tell him in a letter how much he'd meant to me.

Marie Sherlock practiced law for a decade before turning to writing and editing in her 30s — and never looked back. She's worked as the editor of several publications and is the author of a parenting book (Living Simply with Children; Three Rivers Press). She spends her empty-nest days writing about travel trends and destinations, simplicity, spirituality and social justice issues. Read More